Restaurants cut back on fried dishes and premium products as prices rise

Restaurants are cutting back on fried dishes and taking premium products such as scallops off the menu due to spiralling costs.

The Terrace restaurant in Yarmouth on the Isle of Wight has removed around 30% of its fried dishes over the last two weeks after it saw the price of kitchen oil double.

General manager Tom Fahey said: “We used to do a crispy squid and scampi. They outsold every other starter two to one. People love crispy deep-fried things, [but] it means you use a huge amount of oil.

“What can we do? We’re heading into summer in a seaside town and if people are not going to get fish and chips [from us] they’ll go elsewhere.”

The restaurant has also started replacing beef with deer, buying whole Isle of Wight venison, and butchering in-house.

The Terrace has a flexible menu so can change its dishes based on the ingredients available, but Fahey added it was “pointless” to serve fillet steak as it was “so expensive” and would need to be priced at over £40 on an à la carte menu.

He said: “Two or three weeks ago we served a fallow deer butchers' block with four different cuts priced differently. If we were to do a butchers' block of steak we’d be talking a £40 fillet, £30 sirloin, probably £32 ribeye. Venison loin is on around £25-£26 and £21-£22 for a haunch.”

Damian Broom, executive chef at Seaham Hall Hotel & Spa in Durham, said on average, most food items had risen in price by 50%.

Three months ago, rapeseed oil used to cost the hotel £19 per 20 litres, but this has now risen to £31.98.

The hotel’s fine dining restaurant has had to take scallops off the menu and replace some luxury items with more “humble” alternatives, Broom said.

He added the restaurant had “rigorous standards” to keep but price rises meant the kitchen now had a more “limited choice” on what could go on the menu.

Broom said that scallops had been removed as they now cost £4.50 each, which would force the restaurant to sell its scallop dish for upwards of £16 to even get close to its gross profit target.

Chef Tom Brown, owner of Michelin-starred Cornerstone in London, told the Sunday Times he had removed scallops, monkfish, hake, John Dory and cod from menus due to price rises.

His £19 scallop starter with peanut, chilli and lime has been taken off the menu because rising costs mean he would have to charge £30 for the dish, the chef told the paper.

Broom said it was difficult for some businesses to charge what they needed to cover the increases in costs.

He added: “Most guests simply don’t understand how much food costs now and we don’t want to be accused of being greedy. In reality, we work extremely hard to give value for money and [serve] an exciting plate of food for the minimum we can charge to make a small profit.”